


Only Fools

by cobalamincosel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Break Up, Coming of Age, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25495819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobalamincosel/pseuds/cobalamincosel
Summary: “The person I like,” Renjun had said, too ashamed to look Donghyuck in the eye. “He’s sitting right next to me.”And Donghyuck, lovely, radiant, blushing a deep pink. “Me?”“Yeah, you.”A massive smile hidden behind two hands.“I like you, too.”It had been that simple.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan
Comments: 67
Kudos: 187





	Only Fools

**Author's Note:**

> **PLEASE READ THIS NOTE BEFORE READING THE STORY:**
> 
> [Renjun Fools Cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ1INjhhqCk&feature=youtu.be%22) dropped and I ended up bawling for a solid hour. It was a lot. Anyway I ended up opening a Google doc and this happened. 
> 
> This story is sad, and deals with homophobia within the community and in both Donghyuck and Renjun's home. Nothing overtly abusive happens, but it's implied that they're in a setting where it is very hard to be themselves. If this is a difficult topic for you to read, please close out now. 
> 
> For anyone who is reading this that has gone through what they went through, please now that you are not alone in this. I need us to believe that much like Troye/Renjun sings: "I am tired of this place. I hope that people change." 
> 
> My eternal thanks to the absolutely wonderful [Anne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/pseuds/speckledsolanaceae) for beta-reading this so quickly. You're a gem, truly.

The thing about moving out of your small town to a big city for college is that you end up spending too much time ruminating the last vestiges of childhood that cling to you. You’re given no choice but to face it. 

“Renjun, I left another box out here for you just in case—”

“Thank you, mama!” Renjun shouts back from inside his room, all of his clothing strewn about on the floor. “I’ll get to it, just hold on!” 

He hears his mother’s footsteps retreat down the stairs, and then he’s once again left alone with his thoughts. Papers and pictures surround him where he’s got his legs spread on the wood paneling of his floor. The walls are now devoid of the posters and paintings that he’d had up for years—some of which he’s throwing out now that high school has ended; others, mostly pieces he’d painted in acrylic and oil himself, are ones that will go with him when he moves into the dorms. 

He’s had to overhaul his entire room to decide what to bring along, what to leave behind, and what to toss forever. It’s proving much harder to do than he’d expected. His clothes have been divided up into the “keep” and “donate” piles. All the smaller jeans and shirts and old football uniforms sit limp and morose in the corner of his room. The clothes he’s keeping remain either hung in his closet that now looks half-empty, or folded on the bed to be rolled into his luggage later.

Next to him in a neat little stack are letters. Years and years of notes that he’d written, poetry and lyrics to a person who should be here, but isn’t. 

Renjun bites down on his tongue. The taste of his fight with Donghyuck still stings in his mouth. 

He runs his fingers over the satin ribbon that holds the stack together. He’d meant to throw this all out, really. All of his deepest, most ridiculous musings, his longing, his remorse, and his hope in scattered pieces of paper. 

It’s stupid that he still has it, it’s stupid that he hasn’t given it to Donghyuck, but after that fight, Renjun really should just let it go. 

In a few days, he will leave this place, and while it isn’t for good, it feels like a separation, a liberation, and packing his things feels like a nail in the coffin that he should have buried long ago. 

The thing about falling in love with your best friend at sixteen, having your secret relationship found out at seventeen, and moving away at eighteen, is that you’re left to pick up the pieces of all those emotions and put them in a box so it’s neat and leaves no trace. 

Renjun sighs, leaning back against his bed, closing his eyes. 

It was wonderful, falling in love with Donghyuck. It had been exhilarating, feeling the mustard seed of longing lodge itself into Renjun’s heart and watching it grow when he watered it with the courage to tell Donghyuck while they sat outside the school before they both went home. 

“The person I like,” Renjun had said, too ashamed to look Donghyuck in the eye. “He’s sitting right next to me.” 

And Donghyuck, lovely, radiant, blushing a deep pink. “Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

A massive smile hidden behind two hands. 

“I like you, too.” 

It had been that simple. 

Renjun presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids, and remembers their first kiss, remembers the giddy madness that filled him when Donghyuck took him by the hand behind the bleachers at sunset and cupped Renjun’s face in his hands and pressed a soft, desperate kiss to his lips. 

It took them ten minutes, ten hours, a century to come up for air, and he’d counted Donghyuck’s freckles every time they’d pulled apart. 

It’s hard to keep a relationship a secret in a small town. Everyone sees everything, everyone talks. You can’t just fly under the radar when you’re two boys in a conservative place. 

They tried to keep it hush-hush. They were best friends. It was easy enough to steal kisses and breathe into each other’s mouths hot and heavy when they were in the safety of their rooms. Easy enough to tell their respective families and friends that they were just hanging out. 

Renjun would bow in the presence of Donghyuck’s parents and would politely offer to help in the kitchen whenever the Lees would insist he stay over for dinner. Renjun’s mother adored Donghyuck and his siblings and never had any qualms about Renjun staying over. 

In school, Renjun pretended that he liked Shuhua, and Donghyuck would seethe in jealousy whenever they’d be seated together. Through texts, behind closed doors, Renjun desperately tried to control Donghyuck’s anger. 

“Why are you still with me?” Donghyuck had shouted once, red in the face, hands in fists at his sides. “It doesn’t look like pretend when you look at her, Renjun!”

“Why don’t you get it?” Renjun had asked quietly, not used to this side of Donghyuck. “I’m doing this to protect us.” 

_Protect us._ Because people would talk sometimes, and it would make Renjun’s gut churn, and even if Donghyuck never said it, he was scared too. 

It took a year of hiding for them to get caught, Donghyuck’s little sister bursting into the room while Renjun was on top of Donghyuck, their shirts off. 

It was a humiliating four hours of being chewed out by Donghyuck’s mother, who told them that it was wrong, that two boys don’t belong together, that they are young and will get over this phase. It was an agonizing thirty minutes of listening to Eomma Lee talking to his own mother over the phone to fill her in on their son’s sordid activities. 

It took two months for their families to believe them when they told them that it was a one-time thing, and that it was all a mistake. 

Renjun hung his head, not in shame, but in fear, whenever he stepped out of the house to head back to school. His mother only began to warm to him again after he told her that he and Shuhua were dating. He and Donghyuck slowly began to spend time together again, the suspicion slowly receding. 

Shuhua was wonderful, knew the role she played in all of this once Renjun came clean. 

“I’ll be your pretend girlfriend for now, baby,” she said, her arm locked in his. “It keeps my parents off my back, too.” 

Shuhua isn’t gay, but she didn’t care about finding a boyfriend at the time. Renjun still can’t believe how lucky he is.

Renjun’s mother no longer pursed her lips when Donghyuck came over, but it didn’t change the fact that they had to leave the door open when he did. Donghyuck’s mother started inviting him to stay for dinner again, and it was like everything was swept under the rug, like people had learned that the best course of action was to just pretend that nothing happened. 

In secret, he and Donghyuck still stole kisses, even if it was dangerous. Even if Donghyuck still gritted his teeth when Shuhua was around. They found empty classrooms and snuck off into the boy’s locker rooms and got a kiss or two in when the hallways of their houses were clear. 

The day that Renjun got the acceptance letter from SMU, it was almost like all his sins were absolved. There was a celebratory party, and Renjun’s parents, both alumni from the university and both completely over the moon, decked out the entire dining table and living room in the blue and white of the school’s colors. It was embarrassing since it wasn’t like he was the only one from the school who got accepted, but he invited his friends anyway, and the house was filled with the smell of _qié hé_ , pork with cellophane noodles, catfish, xiao long bao. 

Donghyuck was there, and Renjun saw through his forced smile, because Renjun is leaving this town, and Donghyuck is not, having been accepted in the local college, and there really aren’t any clear-cut solutions for two boys who want to keep playing at love when it feels like the entire world is out to get to them. 

There was a package on his bed when the party ended, a modest box with no name, but Renjun knew who it was from. 

There were three sketchbooks, a Qianshan travel set with watercolor cakes and two water brushes, a bundle of charcoal pencils tied together with a yellow ribbon, and a note that said, “For your heart.”

It’s confusing, what he and Donghyuck are, but he didn’t expect the fight. He should have, though. Renjun really should have. 

It’s an old wound but with a worse sting, the closer it got to Renjun leaving. 

They’re good at hurting each other, Renjun knows this. He just never expected it to get this bad. But then again, they barely know what they’re doing in the first place. They’d existed in this limited space, with limited time. They hadn’t thought about the finish line.

You think you fall in love at sixteen and know everything there is to know about it when you’re the blind leading the fucking blind. 

Renjun sighs to himself, leans forward, gathers the polaroids of him and Donghyuck that they’d taken on Renjun’s bed in his hands, and tells himself that he will not cry. The plan had been to try this thing out, long-distance.

Instead, he gets Donghyuck’s nasty, “Just leave and forget about me,” like it was that easy. 

“It’s better this way, no one has to wait around for anyone,” Donghyuck said. “We were doomed anyway.” 

It’s the way he said it. Flat, like there was no fight at all left inside of him. 

“Hyuck--”

“What? What? What’s the fucking point? You’re leaving and it’s not like we can be together anyway. Like there’s no point, there’s no endgame with us. We got caught and we’ve spent the entire time since then pretending like we’re straight and that it was all a fluke so what the fuck is the point?” 

Donghyuck wasn’t even crying, and all Renjun _could_ do was cry. 

Renjun still doesn’t have any answers for him. He’d allowed himself to believe that their _love_ could weather anything after they’d weathered their mothers finding out. He thought that after the worst of it, they’d be okay, but here his boyfriend is, throwing in the towel and throwing him out in the cold. 

Renjun’s phone ringing pulls him out of his head, but the cold that washes over him makes him still. 

**Donghyuck is calling…**

“Hello?” Renjun says, his heart hammering in his chest. He hasn’t heard from Hyuck in a day, which sounds short, but had been an eternity when he’d spent it waiting. 

“Hi,” Donghyuck says. His voice is soft, small. Contrite. “Can you come out tonight? Meet me by the playground?” 

The thing about Renjun is that he will drop anything for Lee Donghyuck. He will lie to his parents, hide in bathrooms, keep letters under the mattress, pretend to see Shuhua, deal with the tension and the jealousy—all of it for Donghyuck—and Renjun wishes that there was a better way for him to articulate it. Wishes that it was enough. 

But loving someone doesn’t make a relationship. He’s hard to learn that the hard way. 

“Yeah,” Renjun says, just as quietly. “What time?” 

“Now?” 

Renjun glances out of the window, the sky the pale pink-orange of peaches, purple like the taro Donghyuck loves so much. 

“Okay,” Renjun says. “Okay, I’ll be there.” 

He makes quick work of hiding his Polaroids under his mattress. Leaves no trace. 

Steeling his resolve, Renjun takes the stack of letters in his hands, rises to stand, and decides that whatever happens, he’ll have given Donghyuck his entire truth. It’s up to Donghyuck what he wants to do with it. 

He texts Shuhua, asking if she can cover for him, and she replies quickly with a, “Sure, boyfie, I’ve got you! 🥳” 

A goddess among men, his pretend-girlfriend. 

He makes his way down the stairs where the smell of fried fish wafts up from the kitchen. 

“You’re going out?” His mother asks from the kitchen. 

Renjun shoves the stack of letters under his armpit, and says, “Yeah, I just have to see Shuhua really quick. I’ll be back in time for dinner.” 

His mother purses her lips, but nods. “Okay, baobei. See you.” 

Renjun breathes out, sends a silent prayer of thanks for the lack of interrogation, and locks the door behind him. 

The park is a ten-minute walk from his house, a fifteen-minute one from Donghyuck’s. The sun continues to sink down, the sidewalk bathed in tangerine and blue. 

The wind is cooler now, and he wishes that he thought to put a jacket on before leaving. The wrought-iron gate that serves as the entrance to the playground comes into view, and Donghyuck is there, sitting on one of the two swings. 

Donghyuck’s looking at the ground, and it’s obvious that he hasn’t slept much. His hair’s sticking out at the back, and his shoulders are slumped, his hands hanging loosely on the chains. 

“Hi, baby,” Renjun says, stepping onto the grass, making his way across it to stand in front of Donghyuck, who startles and looks up at him. 

“Hi,” Donghyuck says. 

Renjun feels the ache in his chest that he’s been nursing since their last fight flare acutely like his rib cage is about to flay itself open. He takes the swing next to Donghyuck, resting the stack of letters on his own lap. They’re both facing the jungle gym that they used to play on back when they were small, back when adulthood wasn’t at their doorstep. 

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck says, his voice carrying in the wind. “I shouldn’t have talked to you like that.”

Renjun’s silent for a moment. He digs the tips of his fingers into the edge of the paper. 

“I’m sorry too, I shouldn’t have shouted at you,” Renjun replies.

So good at hurting each other. 

“Are you all packed?” Donghyuck asks, swaying slightly, feet planted on the ground. 

“Not yet,” Renjun says. _‘You were supposed to help me’_ remains unsaid. “But I’m getting there.”

“I can’t—I’m,” Donghyuck says, cutting himself off. Renjun watches the last of the sunlight catch on his nose. The soft breeze blows through the playground. They’re the only two here. “I can’t watch you leave.” 

Renjun holds onto the papers harder. He wonders if any sheets are sharp enough to cut, or if these frayed edges, weather-worn from all his nights writing them, have softened to the point that the only things that can deal any damage are the words he’s written on them. 

“So you’d rather avoid me while I’m still around?” 

There’s that hiss of breath that Donghyuck does when he’s annoyed or grappling for something to say. 

“What am I supposed to do without you here?” Donghyuck asks. “Tell me honestly, do you want me to wait around with my hat in my hands for when you come back?” 

“I was under the impression that we would still be together even if I’m not around,” Renjun says flatly. “People maintain relationships long-distance, you know.” 

“You can say that because you’re the one _leaving_ ,” Donghyuck says, and he sounds petulant, but it’s also the truth. “I have no idea who you’re going to meet when you’re there and—”

“Just say you don’t trust me so we can spare each other the beating around the bush, Donghyuck,” Renjun says. His boyfriend’s full name always feels foreign to him. He’s so accustomed to saying “Hyuck” or “baby.” This entire conversation is doused with a wrongness that feels like gasoline. 

Donghyuck looks up at this, his eyes angry, his mouth turned down in a small pout. Renjun used to think that looked cute on him, until he’d become such a regular receiver of it that now, seeing it only makes him resent Donghyuck even more. 

“You’ve never really trusted me,” Renjun says quietly. “If you did, you wouldn’t have spent so much time accusing me of actually being in love with Shuhua, or thinking I was eyeing Jaemin, or whatever else you’ve accused me of. If you trusted me, you’d think we’d make it.” 

Renjun is shorter than Donghyuck, but in this moment, Donghyuck looks so much smaller than him, hunched over himself, arms crossed at his belly like he’s got a stomachache. 

His eyes are beginning to sting. He wishes Donghyuck would say something. 

“I just don’t know how to be without you,” Donghyuck finally says. “I’m sorry that that’s where I am.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not healthy,” Renjun replies. 

“You’re right,” Donghyuck says. 

Night has fallen like a shroud around them. 

“Hyuck,” Renjun whispers. His throat closes up. His skin goose-pimples. He will not cry. “Why does it feel like you asked me here so you could say goodbye?”

“Because I did,” Donghyuck replies. 

“Oh.” 

Lucky he brought the letters then, Renjun supposes. 

He will not cry. 

He will not. 

“I don’t know what college is gonna be like for either of us, and I don’t—I mean, you’re gonna meet new people,” Donghyuck says. “It should be exciting for you. I’m—it’s easier this way.” 

“Easier for me or easier for you?” Renjun asks, too defeated to be angry anymore. 

“For both of us,” Donghyuck says. His voice is thick, and belatedly, Renjun registers that Donghyuck is breaking up with him for good, and he’s the one crying. “I can’t sit around waiting for you, and I don’t want to hold you back from anything.” 

“Do I even get a say in this?”

Renjun holds onto his letters like a lifeline, as if every flowery declaration and promise he’s ever written down will somehow miraculously convince the most stubborn boy he’s ever met to change his mind. 

“Injunnie,” Donghycuk chokes out. “I don’t want this either but—”

“Remember when we used to be brave?” Renjun looks him in the eye, angry and hurt and desperate. “Remember when we used to take chances and say fuck it and just—”

“Remember how that turned out for us?” Donghyuck replies. The memory of it hurts so much that Renjun’s sneaker slips on the dirt ground and he swings a little off-kilter before righting himself. He remembers. He never forgets. 

“You’re getting away from it all,” Donghyuck continues. “You get to be free. I want you to be free.” 

He will not cry. He will not cry. He will not cry. 

Donghyuck rises from the swing and casts a glance around to see if anyone can see them, but there’s nothing but quiet on the streets, and the orange of the streetlamps outside the park. He crouches in front of Renjun, looks up at him, eyes glittering. 

“I’ll never love anyone the way I love you, Huang Renjun,” Donghyuck chokes out, his hands folded over Renjun’s.

Renjun knows that this is true, but it’s a fleeting thing to hold on to. None of the movies train you for this kind of ache, not really. He’s tried to find himself in them, in the coming-of-age films that are supposed to cater to people their age, kids standing on the precipice of an entirely new world. Renjun’s seen these films before. He’s never liked the endings. 

“I hate you so much right now,” Renjun replies. He will not cry, but it’s a close thing. “I really…I can’t stand you.” 

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Donghyuck says. “I’m sorry.” 

These letters won’t do anything. Renjun knows. But they’re still everything that he’s ever wished he could have told Donghyuck, things that the Renjun at twelve, at fourteen, at sixteen wanted to say but never could. Not in a small town where all they had were the small pockets of space and safety that they could barely carve for themselves. 

Renjun reaches out, tips Donghyuck’s chin back, and wipes under Donghyuck’s left eye, the tear catching on Renjun’s thumb. 

“I’m sorry, too,” Renjun replies, finally. “I’m sorry.”

_Sorry for this heartache._

_Sorry for starting this._

_Sorry we got caught._

_Sorry for the scene at the bottom of the stairs, when your mother called my mother and told her we were sinners._

_Sorry for all the fighting._

_Sorry that even when we tried to hold on, the world still tore us apart._

_Sorry we’re here._

“This is for you,” Renjun says finally. “You can read them, or you can burn them, I don’t care. But this is for you.”

“What is this?” Donghyuck asks, taking the stack in his hands, the yellow ribbon keeping every sheet in place, the same one that Donghyuck had used to tie his charcoal pencils. 

“My heart, I guess,” Renjun replies, before finally standing up. Donghyuck cranes his neck back then rises to meet him. The cover of night and the trees near them confer the smallest amount of privacy—they know this because they’ve kissed here before. “Or, well, my heart as it is right now.”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says, glancing at the papers in his hands. 

Renjun’s heart is so, so broken, and his back and his chest are exhausted from the force of trying to keep it together, to not fly off the handles the way he had last time. There’s no fight in him left. 

This really is the end. 

Renjun looks around. Still no people, just the rustling of the wind through the trees. They step into the shadows, and Donghyuck’s lips are on his in an instant, wet and insistent and this kiss hurts like no other. How is anyone supposed to get their last kiss right? 

He tries though, tries to make it count, fingers in the lapels of Donghyuck’s shirt while Donghyuck presses in closer, and Renjun feels the slip of tears on his cheeks, remembering the magic of their first kiss behind the bleachers, remembering how he counted freckles in the dim light from the field. 

It ends much too soon, but Renjun keeps his eyes closed. Lips on his forehead. Lips on his nose. Lips on both his cheeks. 

The air shifts. Grass crinkles underfoot. Another breeze. Warmth escapes him, but Renjun keeps his eyes closed. Will keep his eyes closed. 

He can’t watch Donghyuck leave, either. 

He waits, and waits, and when he opens his eyes, Donghyuck is gone. 

Renjun takes a shuddering breath, and then a step, and then another until he’s running home. He wishes, as he runs, that he could fall into his mother’s arms. Isn’t that what mothers are for? To hold you while you weep, and tell you how much they love you, and give you sage advice about how to nurse a broken heart?

When he enters through the front door, his mother greets him with a “Just in time, baobei!” before he takes one look at her, bites down on his tongue hard, and forces a smile. 

“Told you I’d be quick,” Renjun manages to say. 

His heartbreak goes into a little box. 

He’ll tend to it later. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at [my carrd, made by the lovely Erin.](https://t.co/Nm5AvDvn2U)
> 
> Thank you to the following users who answered my queries about Chinese food:  
> @n_ikuman  
> @andnowforyaya  
> @1ighitup  
> @expensivegiiirl  
> @seohyuckie


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